1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a travel control apparatus for vehicles, adapted to control vehicles, which travel in an autonomously induced manner on the basis of position measurement information, on a track having adjoining vehicle pass-by lanes for the purpose of having the vehicles pass each other.
2. Description of the Related Art
When ores are transported over a long distance, for example, from a mining site to processing facilities in an extremely large job site, such as a mine, a vehicle operating system which is designed to release workers from severe working environment by having special vehicles, such as unmanned dump trucks travel in an autonomously induced manner on the basis of preset course data and actual traveling data is employed (refer, for example, to U.S. Pat. No. 6,292,725).
In this vehicle operating system, adjoining vehicle pass-by lanes Ra, Rb are provided as shown in FIG. 7 on one track R connecting a mining site A and processing facilities B together. The system is formed so as to have vehicles T, T pass each other on a track R by making each vehicle T travel in an autonomously induced manner on the basis of a traveling course (course data) preset on the lanes Ra, Rb and traveling data (position, speed, etc.) obtained by utilizing a position measuring system, such as GPS.
As shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B, each of traveling courses Ca, Cb on lanes Ra, Rb of a track R is set in a position offset by a distance L from a relative shoulder on the basis of an induction margin e provided on an outer side of a vehicle T and a safety margin s1 of the shoulder.
The width (total width including up and down lanes) W of the track R is equal to the sum of the widths Tw of the vehicles T passing each other on the lanes Ra, Rb, those of the induction margins e provided on the left and right sides of the vehicles T, those of the safety margins s1 provided between the vehicles T and relative shoulders, and a safety margin s2 provided between the vehicles T, T passing each other. The width W is set larger than the sum of the widths Tw of the two vehicles T.
In order to improve the efficiency of the transportation work in the mine, increasing a traveling speed of the vehicles T is conceivable but an increase in the traveling speed causes the necessity of setting the various kinds of margins (e, s1, s2) large. As a result, the width W of the track R becomes uselessly large.
Such a track R in the above-mentioned mine is prepared by making a mountain to order when the mine starts being operated. In a large-scale mine, a track extends over ten-odd kilometers in total in some cases. Therefore, as the width W of the track R increases, the track creation cost and maintenance cost become higher.